UN MAGE EN ÉTÉ A MAGUS IN SUMMER text Olivier Cadiot stage direction Ludovic Lagarde with Laurent Poitrenaux creation for the 64 th Avignon Festival Photo Marthe Lemelle CONTACTS JEAN-MICHEL HOSSENLOPP deputy director + 33 (0)6 16 74 57 80 - jm.hossenlopp@lacomediedereims.fr SOLENN RÉTO production and tour manager + 33 (0)7 81 14 08 41 - s.reto@lacomediedereims.fr
Un mage en été A Magus in Summer text Olivier Cadiot stage direction Ludovic Lagarde stage design Antoine Vasseur lights Sébastien Michaud costumes Fanny Brouste image design Cédric Scandella dramaturgy Marion Stoufflet computer musical production Ircam Grégory Beller sound production David Bichindaritz choreographies and movements Stéfany Ganachaud video Jonathan Michel creative code Brice Martin Graser assistant to the stage direction Chloé Brugnon assistante to the stage design Élodie Dauguet with Laurent Poitrenaux production La Comédie de Reims Centre dramatique national coproduction Festival d Avignon, Ircam/Les Spectacles vivants-centre Pompidou, centre dramatique national Orléans / Loiret / Centre La Comédie de Reims receives for this creation the support of Champagne- Ardenne Region. The text Un mage en été is published at the P.O.L Editions (2010) duration 1 hour 30 minutes
This magus is on strike Since Le Colonel des Zouaves created in 1997, I have worked with Ludovic Lagarde on several projects. However that play has remained central for us as a source of inspiration and energy. This minimal experience, a book-monologue, an acting solo, an enclosed playground, a space built around an original voice, produced opposite effects. The monologue was polyphonic, the compressed body became epic. The intricate work of the director, the lighting engineer, the musician, the choreographer and the actor, allowed to hear an unusual literary flow and to blend written words with performance. The book has to be forced towards the stage. It s a teamwork and we wanted to work again within this concentration. Un mage en été A Magus in Summer proposes to take up this peculiar format again to create something different. In Un nid pour quoi faire, a man, the Robinson who exists within all my books, decides to get back into action and to tackle a new weird mission: to improve the image of a tarnished royal court. In Un mage en été A Magus in Summer, our hero doesn t move anymore. He shuts his doors and locks himself up in a basement, a place at the same time ancient and modern, a studio-office-kitchen-workshop. He doesn t build tree houses anymore, his island is deep inside him, he becomes the archaeologist of his daily life. This magus is on strike. And if the dynamic of Colonel des Zouaves was work madness, this new Robinson tries to let go of his perfectionist obsession and his digressive compulsion. Adorno encouraged us to «Imagine Nietzsche playing golf» and actually, why not? I thought: How can an old magician like me go swimming? Layers to remove, flannel cardigans, felt-lined fitted coat, detachable collars, and fob watch. Fflllllllll, sliding into the water, a fat white bearded body sinking into mud like a hippopotamus. He will paradoxically find this kind of relaxation by carefully diving into technology. His crystal ball looks like today s web as well as ancient fabrics. He is a technical memory. Wood and copper, reinforced with titanium, thumbwheels and voice command. A billion pixels. Little burning blue warning lights. We keep everything in memory: depth of the negative, stereoscopic relief, huge vibration of the black & white, sepia and charcoal crayon of ancient deceased s prints. And what about the oil autochrome print? Absolutely, answers the advertisement, you will obtain 100% deep colours, fruits with a vibrant shine, orange peaches on a China blue plate. Agfa? Fuji? Of course! And what about clearness? Absolute focus everywhere. Super digital. Zero loss. We have it all. No nostalgia. We improve without losing anything. Colours crushed in a mortar. Smell of the spotlight, dust in a ray of light, smell of a pearled screen + increased reality, we keep it all. The lost effect as well. The leaflet-that-knows-it-all assures that they can even repair. Look. It s like a strip of plaster, it repairs, a lint? Something comes to cauterize the scenes. Crumbling fabric, stonewashed colours, scratch, negative s burns, fragments of departed ones. Put the dead and the living back together at the right speed, promises the leaflet.
Until this last project, the successive Robinsons were all Fridays hired within a plot and the only exit from these successive tragedies was the voice, and everything would end with songs for the spirits. But is it ok to be reduced to a state of spiritual robot? Of course it s good, of course it s ok. But why? It s been the dream of everyone, at least the dream of our thinking; it s always been the dream of our thinking. A shouting robot. In Un mage en été A Magus in Summer, let s hope that thinking ourselves as robots won t prevent us from having a body. Olivier Cadiot The Trio Cadiot-Lagarde-Poitrenaux This text is a loop. It provokes memories and is obviously a return to the origins of a trio formed at the end of the 90s. At the time writer Olivier Cadiot, stage director Ludovic Lagarde and actor Laurent Poitrenaux create Le Colonel des Zouaves. An incredible stage object where the voice, the words, the movements and the attitudes of one motionless man count more than a thousand different characters and any crazy race around the world. With Un mage en été A Magus in Summer, after three shows broadened to the collective, the trio Cadiot- Lagarde-Poitrenaux returns to the solitary although crowded monologue. The life of a magician whose crystal ball turns into a tool of visions and feelings with instant efficiency: he lives what he can see. Water runs down his body, nature surrounds him, knowledge is within reach; he grabs the world, visualizes it, understands it. What he takes from it is precious: a kind of minimal survival by free evocations, a Proust-like trip of crushed madeleine, a freeze-dried infusion of extreme awareness. A show built around flashes of daily life, tales of real facts. Laurent Poitrenaux s changing voice and spread movements, the contrasted light of Ludovic Lagarde s vision, Olivier Cadiot s patterned writing: the data accumulation turns this magician into one of the most efficient tools of perception. Like a machine with a body, or a mindful technique Antoine de Baecque For the Avignon Festival
Biographies Olivier Cadiot, writer Olivier Cadiot was born in 1956 in Paris. In 1988, he publishes with the Editions P.O.L a first book of poetry l Art poétic. In 1993, it s the release of the first volume of a series borderline novel: Futur, ancien, fugitif, followed by Colonel des Zouaves in 1997, Retour définitif et durable de l être aimé, Fairy queen in 2002 and finally Un nid pour quoi faire in 2007 (Editions P.O.L). For the theatre, he writes a first play for Ludovic Lagarde in 1993 Sœurs et frères. Then it will be books that the director will adapt, from the monologue of Colonel des Zouaves in 1997 to Fairy queen in 2004. Olivier Cadiot is the author in association with the Comédie de Reims and was the author in association with the Avignon Festival in 2010. In March 2013, he adapts and translates Les Revenants by Henrik Ibsen with the stage director Thomas Ostermeier, created at the Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne and then performed at Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers. He publishes Providence in 2015 and Histoire de la littérature récente in 2016. Ludovic Lagarde, stage director Ludovic Lagarde was born in 1962 in Paris. He realized his first stage directions at the Comédie de Reims and at the Théâtre Granit in Belfort. His first collaboration with Olivier Cadiot goes back to 1993, when he asked him for a play, Sœurs et frères, created at the Théâtre Granit in Belfort. From 1997 onwards, he has adapted and directed the writer s last books: Le Colonel des Zouaves (1997), Retour définitif et durable de l être aimé and Fairy Queen. In 2008, he directed the opera Roméo et Juliette by Pascal Dusapin at the Opéra Comique and Massacre by Wolfgang Mitterer at the São João Theatre in Porto and at the Strasbourg s Musica festival. Since January 2009, Ludovic Lagarde is director of the Comédie de Reims. In March 2010, he creates there Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights by Gertrude Stein with the musician Rodolphe Burger. For the Avignon Festival in 2010, he creates Un nid pour quoi faire and Un mage en été by Olivier Cadiot. In January 2012, Ludovic Lagarde shows a Georg Büchner trilogy Woyzech, La Mort de Danton, Léonce et Léna at the Comédie de Reims, then performed in January 3013 at the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris. In March 2013, he directs La Voix Humaine by Jean Cocteau at the Grand Théâtre du Luxembourg and at the Opéra-Comique. He creates Lear is in Town for the 67 th Avignon Festival, adapted from King Lear by William Shakespeare, translated by Frédéric Boyer and Olivier Cadiot. In 2014, he stages Le Regard du nageur, written and performed by Christèle Tual, he directs Greek actors in Quai Ouest at the National Theater of Greece, and he creates L Avare by Molière at the Comédie de Reims. In 2015, he creates La Baraque, by Aiat Fayez, in the frame of Reims Scènes d Europe Festival. In 2016, he stages Marta by Wolfgang Mitterer at the Opéra de Lille and directs Laurent Poitrenaux in Providence, by Olivier Cadiot.
Laurent Poitrenaux, actor Laurent Poitrenaux has worked on stage with many directors, among them Eric Vigner, Daniel Jeanneteau, Arthur Nauzyciel, François Berreur, Christian Schiaretti, Thierry Bédard, Yves Beaunesne, Didier Galas Used to Ludovic Lagarde s stage directions, he has played in almost all his shows, especially in collaboration with Olivier Cadiot for Sœurs et frères, Le Colonel des Zouaves, Retour définitif et durable de l être aimé, Fairy queen, Un nid pour quoi faire and Un mage en été. He played Richard in Richard III directed by Ludovic Lagarde and created at the Avignon Festival in 2007. Laurent Poitrenaux also creates with him a Georg Büchner trilogy Woyzeck, La Mort de Danton, Léonce et Léna at the Comédie de Reims, then performed in January 3013 at the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris. For the Avignon Festival 2011, he performed Jan Karski (Mon nom est une fiction) directed by Arthur Nauzyciel, with whom he also created La Mouette by Tchekhov in the Cour d honneur of the Popes Palace in 2012. In 2013, he collaborates again with Ludovic Lagarde for the creation Lear is in Town, adapted from King Lear by William Shakespeare, translated by Frédéric Boyer and Olivier Cadiot. For the cinema, Laurent Poitrenaux acted within the direction of Claude Mouriéras, Christian Vincent, Isabelle Czajka (La Vie domestique) and recently with the fim director Agnès Jaoui for Au bout du conte. In 2014, he plays several roles in Une femme, unreleased text by Philipe Minyana directed by Marcial Di Fonzo Bo, he takes part in Daniel Jeanneteau s most recent creation and perform the lead role in L Avare staged by Ludovic Lagarde. In 2016, he works with Pascal Rambert in Argument and will collaborate again with Ludovic Lagarde for his new creation Providence by Olivier Cadiot. Photo Marthe Lemelle
Tour creation July 21st to 27th 2010 Avignon Festival September 22 nd to 27 th 2010 Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris September 30 th 2010 Centre Georges Pompidou, Metz January 25 th and 26 th Monnot Theater, Beyrouth (Lebanon) February 8 th to 10 th 2011 Centre dramatique national de Lorient CDDB February 17 th 2011 Le Nouveau Relax, Chaumont February 24 th and 25 th 2011 Le Manège, La Roche-sur-Yon March 8 th to 12 th 2011 La Comédie de Reims CDN March 15 th to 19 th 2011 Théâtre Les Ateliers, Lyon March 23 th to 25 th 2011 Centre dramatique national d Orléans March 31 st to April 2 nd 2011 Théâtre des Deux Rives, Rouen April 8 th 2011 Théâtre de La Madeleine, Troyes April 12 th to 17 th 2011 La Manufacture, Nancy April 20 th and 21 st 2011 Le Trident, Cherbourg May 3 rd 2011 Le Salmanazar, Epernay May 10 th and 11 th 2011 Perspectives Festival, Sarrebrück (Germany) June 25 th and 26 th 2011 GREC Festival, Barcelona (Spain) March 6 th to 8 th 2012 L Amphithéâtre, Pont-de-Claix March 23 th 2012 Théâtre Liberté, Toulon March 29 th to 31 th 2012 Théâtre du Gymnase, Marseille April 3 th 2012 La Passerelle Scène nationale de Gap April 24 th to 28 th 2012 Théâtre National de Toulouse May 10 th 2012 L Equinoxe Scène Nationale de Châteauroux May 15 th 2012 La Passerelle Scène Nationale de Saint-Brieuc May 24 th to June 3 rd 2012 Théâtre du Rond-Point, Paris November 26 th and 27 th 2014 Théâtre de Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines May 25 th to 28 th 2016 Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne (Switzerland) June 2016 Festival delle Colline Torinesi (Italy) Contacts JEAN-MICHEL HOSSENLOPP LA COMÉDIE DE REIMS + 33 (0)6 16 74 57 80 - jm.hossenlopp@lacomediedereims.fr SOLENN RÉTO LA COMÉDIE DE REIMS + 33 (0)7 81 14 08 41 - s.reto@lacomediedereims.fr